Archive for season

Before the endless, repetitive and drawn out preview shows begin tonight, we get to see the (just) drawn out NHL Draft Lottery. The Oilers have a chance to win the lottery for the second year in a row. Here is the order:

I am not a fan of the three point game; I don’t like that it rewards a team for inevitably losing the game and creates an unnecessary insane logjam in the standings. But now I have a whole new reason for hating it. Buffalo and Philly were 3-3 with just over a minute left last night. About 10 minutes earlier, Pittsburgh had beaten the Islanders to jump ahead of the Flyers for the Atlantic Division by a single point. Buffalo needed just one point in order to clinch a playoff spot. So what did they decide to do….

I’ve been refraining from posting on this because thinking about it makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry, but Henrik Zetterberg will likely be missing some of the Wings’ first round series this year. Zetterberg is the Wings leading scorer this year with 80 points in 80 games, but even more painful is the fact that he is a former Conn Smythe winner and has accummulated 87 points in his last 85 playoff games. He is one of the players that defines stepping it up in the post season.

Combine his loss with the Wings being 6-6-5 since the beginning of March and that they’ll be playing a team that has essentially been in playoff mode for the last month, and I have to say that I don’t like the Wings’ chances. Continue reading →

Barring any use of a time machine back to 1993, a game between the Penguins and Islanders normally wouldn’t get me going even if Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were healthy enough to play. But tonight is different because of what happened during their last matchup:

That February 11 matchup had a total of 346 penalty minutes, including 15 fighting majors, 20 misconducts and 10 ejections from the game.

Check out this article at NHL.com that takes a look at some numbers to remember from this past hockey season.

The most surprising one has to be

“#8 — Consecutive shootout goals by Los Angeles forward Jarret Stoll, including the deciding goal in L.A.’s playoff-clinching 3-2 win against Phoenix on Thursday. In all, Stoll is 9-for-10 in shootouts; his shooting percentage (90.0) would be the highest of any player with five or more shots since the shootout was introduced in 2005.”

A close second is how the hell can two players take 14 shots in a game and fail to score.

Raffi Torres has been suspended four games for his hit to the head of Jordan Eberle on Tuesday night. With two games remaining on the schedule, this means that Torres won’t see any action until at least Game 3 of the Canucks opening round series.

Eberle left and did not return on Tuesday night, but came back to play last night against Calgary.